The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel

  _Fifteen_

  REVELATION

  Harry Cresswell was scowling over his breakfast. It was not because hisapartment in the New York hotel was not satisfactory, or his breakfastunpalatable; possibly a rather bewildering night in Broadway wasexpressing its influence; but he was satisfied that his ill-temper wasdue to a paragraph in the morning paper:

  "It is stated on good authority that the widow of the latemultimillionaire, Job Grey, will announce a large and carefully plannedscheme of Negro education in the South, and will richly endow schools inSouth Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas."

  Cresswell finally thrust his food away. He knew that Mrs. Grey helpedMiss Smith's school, and supposed she would continue to do so; with thatin mind he had striven to impress her, hoping that she might trust hisjudgment in later years. He had no idea, however, that she meant toendow the school, or entertained wholesale plans for Negro education.The knowledge made him suspicious. Why had neither Mary nor John Taylormentioned this? Was there, after all, some "nigger-loving" conspiracyback of the cotton combine? He took his hat and started down-town.

  Once in John Taylor's Broadway office, he opened the subjectabruptly--the more so perhaps because he felt a resentment againstTaylor for certain unnamed or partially voiced assumptions. Here was aplace, however, for speech, and he spoke almost roughly.

  "Taylor, what does this mean?" He thrust the clipping at him.

  "Mean? That Mrs. Grey is going to get rid of some of her surpluscash--is going to endow some nigger schools," Taylor drily retorted.

  "It must be stopped," declared Cresswell.

  The other's brows drew up.

  "Why?" in a surprised tone.

  "Why? Why? Do you think the plantation system can be maintained withoutlaborers? Do you think there's the slightest chance of cornering cottonand buying the Black Belt if the niggers are unwilling to work underpresent conditions? Do you know the man that stands ready to gobble upevery inch of cotton land in this country at a price which no trust canhope to rival?"

  John Taylor's interest quickened.

  "Why, no," he returned sharply. "Who?"

  "The Black Man, whose woolly head is filled with ideas of rising. We'restriving by main force to prevent this, and here come your damnedNorthern philanthropists to plant schools. Why, Taylor, it'll knock thecotton trust to hell."

  "Don't get excited," said Taylor, judicially. "We've got things in ourhands; it's the Grey money, you know, that is back of us."

  "That's just what confounds me," declared the perplexed young man. "Areyou men fools, or rascals? Don't you see the two schemes can't mix?They're dead opposite, mutually contradictory, absolutely--" Taylorchecked him; it was odd to behold Harry Cresswell so disturbed.

  "Well, wait a moment. Let's see. Sit down. Wish I had a cigar for you,but I don't smoke."

  "Do you happen to have any whiskey handy?"

  "No, I don't drink."

  "Well, what the devil--Oh, well, fire away."

  "Now, see here. We control the Grey millions. Of course, we've got tolet her play with her income, and that's considerable. Her favorite gamejust now is Negro education, and she's planning to go in heavy. Heradviser in this line, however, is Smith, and he belongs to us."

  "What Smith?"

  "Why, the man who's going to be Senator from New Jersey. He has a sisterteaching in the South--you know, of course; it's at your home where mysister Mary taught."

  "Great Scott! Is that woman's brother going to spend this money? Why,are you daft? See here! American cotton-spinning supremacy is built oncheap cotton; cheap cotton is built on cheap niggers. Educating, orrather _trying_ to educate niggers, will make them restless anddiscontented--that is, scarce and dear as workers. Don't you see you'replanning to cut off your noses? This Smith School, particularly, hasnearly ruined our plantation. It's stuck almost in our front yard; _you_are planning to put our plough-hands all to studying Greek, and at thesame time to corner the cotton crop--rot!"

  John Taylor caressed his lean jaw.

  "New point of view to me; I sort of thought education would improvethings in the South," he commented, unmoved.

  "It would if we ran it."

  "We?"

  "Yes--we Southerners."

  "Um!--I see--there's light. See here, let's talk to Easterly aboutthis." They went into the next office, and after a while got audiencewith the trust magnate. Mr. Easterly heard the matter carefully andwaved it aside.

  "Oh, that doesn't concern us, Taylor; let Cresswell take care of thewhole thing. We'll see that Smith does what Cresswell wants."

  But Taylor shook his head.

  "Smith would kick. Mrs. Grey would get suspicious, and the devil be topay. This is better. Form a big committee of Northern business men likeyourself--philanthropists like Vanderpool, and Southerners likeCresswell; let them be a sort of Negro Education steering-committee.We'll see that on such committee you Southerners get what youwant--control of Negro education."

  "That sounds fair. But how about the Smith School? My father writes methat they are showing signs of expecting money right off--is that true?If it is, I want it stopped; it will ruin our campaign for the Farmers'League."

  John Taylor looked at Cresswell. He thought he saw something more thangeneral policy, or even racial prejudice--something personal--in hisvehemence. The Smith School was evidently a severe thorn in the flesh ofthis man. All the more reason for mollifying him. Then, too, there wassomething in his argument. It was not wise to start educating theseNegroes and getting them discontented just now. Ignorant labor was notideal, but it was worth too much to employers to lose it now. EducatedNegro labor might be worth more to Negroes, but not to the cottoncombine. "H'm--well, then--" and John Taylor went into a brown study,while Cresswell puffed impatiently at a cigarette.

  "I have it," said Taylor. Cresswell sat up. "First, let Mr. Easterly getSmith." Easterly turned to the telephone.

  "Is that you, Smith?"

  "Well, this is Easterly.... Yes--how about Mrs. Grey's educationschemes?... Yes.... h'm--well,--see here Smith, we must go a little easythere.... Oh, no, no,--but to advertise just now a big scheme of NegroEducation would drive the Cresswells, the Farmers' League, and the wholebusiness South dead against us.... Yes, yes indeed; they believe ineducation all right, but they ain't in for training lawyers andprofessors just yet.... No, I don't suppose her school is.... Well,then; see here. She'll be reasonable, won't she, and placate theCresswells?... No, I mean run the school to suit their ideas.... No, no,but in general along the lines which they could approve.... Yes, Ithought so ... of course ... good-bye."

  "Inclined to be a little nasty?" asked Taylor.

  "A little sharp--but tractable. Now, Mr. Cresswell, the thing is in yourhands. We'll get this committee which Taylor suggests appointed, andsend it on a junket to Alabama; you do the rest--see?"

  "Who'll be the committee?" asked Cresswell.

  "Name it."

  Mr. Cresswell smiled and left.

  The winter started in severely, and it was easy to fill two private carswith members of the new Negro Education Board right after Thanksgiving.Cresswell had worked carefully and with caution. There was Mrs. Grey,comfortable and beaming, Mr. Easterly, who thought this a good businessopportunity, and his family. Mrs. Vanderpool liked the South and wasamused at the trip, and had induced Mr. Vanderpool to come by stories ofshooting.

  "Ah!" said Mr. Vanderpool.

  Mr. Charles Smith and John Taylor were both too busy to go, butbronchial trouble induced the Rev. Dr. Boldish of St. Faith's richparish to be one of the party, and at the last moment Temple Bocombe,the sociologist, consented to join.

  "Awfully busy," he said, "but I've been reading up on the Negro problemsince you mentioned the matter to me last week, Mr. Cresswell, and Ithink I understand it thoroughly. I may be able to help out."

  The necessary spice of young womanhood was added to the party by MissTaylor and Miss Cresswell, together with the silent Miss Boldish. Theywere a comfor
table and sometimes merry party. Dr. Boldish pointed outthe loafers at the stations, especially the black ones; Mr. Bocombecounted them and estimated the number of hours of work lost at ten centsan hour.

  "Do they get that--ten cents an hour?" asked Miss Taylor.

  "Oh, I don't know," replied Mr. Bocombe; "but suppose they do, forinstance. That is an average wage today."

  "They look lazy," said Mrs. Grey.

  "They are lazy," said Mr. Cresswell.

  "So am I," added Mrs. Vanderpool, suppressing a yawn.

  "It is uninteresting," murmured her husband, preparing for a nap.

  On the whole the members of the party enjoyed themselves from the momentthey drew out of Jersey City to the afternoon when, in four carriages,they rolled beneath the curious eyes of all Toomsville and swept underthe shadowed rampart of the swamp.

  "The Christmas" was coming and all the Southern world was busy. Fewpeople were busier than Bles and Zora. Slowly, wonderfully for them,heaven bent in these dying days of the year and kissed the earth, andthe tremor thrilled all lands and seas. Everything was good, all thingswere happy, and these two were happiest of all. Out of the shadows andhesitations of childhood they had stepped suddenly into manhood andwomanhood, with firm feet and uplifted heads. All the day that wastheirs they worked, picking the Silver Fleece--picking it tenderly andlovingly from off the brown and spent bodies which had so utterlyyielded life and beauty to the full fruition of this long and silkentendril, this white beauty of the cotton. November came and flew, andstill the unexhausted field yielded its frothing fruit.

  Today seemed doubly glorious, for Bles had spoken of their marriage;with twined hands and arms, and lips ever and again seeking their mates,they walked the leafy way.

  Unconscious, rapt, they stepped out into the Big Road skirting the edgeof the swamp. Why not? Was it not the King's Highway? And Love was King.So they talked on, unknowing that far up the road the Cresswell coacheswere wheeling along with precious burdens. In the first carriage wereMrs. Grey and Mrs. Vanderpool, Mr. Cresswell and Miss Taylor. Mrs.Vanderpool was lolling luxuriously, but Mrs. Grey was a little stifffrom long travel and sat upright. Mr. Cresswell looked clean-cut andhandsome, and Miss Taylor seemed complacent and responsible. The dyingof the day soothed them all insensibly. Groups of dark little childrenpassed them as they neared the school, staring with wide eyes andgreeting timidly.

  "There seems to be marrying and giving in marriage," laughed Mrs.Vanderpool.

  "Not very much," said Mr. Cresswell drily.

  "Well, at least plenty of children."

  "Plenty."

  "But where are the houses?" asked Mrs. Grey.

  "Perhaps in the swamp," said Mrs. Vanderpool lightly, looking up at thesombre trees that lined the left.

  "They live where they please and do as they please," Cresswellexplained; to which Mrs. Vanderpool added: "Like other animals."

  Mary Taylor opened her lips to rebuke this levity when suddenly thecoachman called out and the horses swerved, and the carriage's fouroccupants faced a young man and a young woman embracing heartily.

  Out through the wood Bles and Zora had come to the broad red road;playfully he celebrated all her beauty unconscious of time and place.

  "You are tall and bend like grasses on the swamp," he said.

  "And yet look up to you," she murmured.

  "Your eyes are darkness dressed in night."

  "To see you brighter, dear," she said.

  "Your little hands are much too frail for work."

  "They must grow larger, then, and soon."

  "Your feet are far too small to travel on."

  "They'll travel on to you--that's far enough."

  "Your lips--your full and purple lips--were made alone for kissing, notfor words."

  "They'll do for both."

  He laughed in utter joy and touched her hair with light caressing hands.

  "It does not fly with sunlight," she said quickly, with an upwardglance.

  "No," he answered. "It sits and listens to the night."

  But even as she nestled to him happily there came the harsh thunder ofhorses' hoofs, beating on their ears. He drew her quickly to him infear, and the coach lurched and turned, and left them facing four pairsof eyes. Miss Taylor reddened; Mrs. Grey looked surprised; Mrs.Vanderpool smiled; but Mr. Cresswell darkened with anger. The coupleunclasped shamefacedly, and the young man, lifting his hat, started tostammer an apology; but Cresswell interrupted him:

  "Keep your--your philandering to the woods, or I shall have youarrested," he said slowly, his face colorless, his lips twitching withanger. "Drive on, John."

  Miss Taylor felt that her worst suspicions had been confirmed; but Mrs.Vanderpool was curious as to the cause of Cresswell's anger. It was sogenuine that it needed explanation.

  "Are kisses illegal here?" she asked before the horses started, turningthe battery of her eyes full upon him. But Cresswell had himself well inhand.

  "No," he said. "But the girl is--notorious."

  On the lovers the words fell like a blow. Zora shivered, and a grayishhorror mottled the dark burning of her face. Bles started in anger, thenpaused in shivering doubt. What had happened? They knew not; yetinvoluntarily their hands fell apart; they avoided each other's eyes.

  "I--I must go now," gasped Zora, as the carriage swept away.

  He did not hold her, he did not offer the farewell kiss, but stoodstaring at the road as she walked into the swamp. A moment she pausedand looked back; then slowly, almost painfully, she took the path backto the field of the Fleece, and reaching it after long, long minutes,began mechanically to pick the cotton. But the cotton glowed crimson inthe failing sun.

  Bles walked toward the school. What had happened? he kept asking. Andyet he dared not question the awful shape that sat somewhere, cold andstill, behind his soul. He heard the hoofs of horses again. It was MissTaylor being brought back to the school to greet Miss Smith and breakthe news of the coming of the party. He raised his hat. She did notreturn the greeting, but he found her pausing at the gate. It seemed toher too awful for this foolish fellow thus to throw himself away. Shefaced him and he flinched as from some descending blow.

  "Bles," she said primly, "have you absolutely no shame?"

  He braced himself and raised his head proudly.

  "I am going to marry her; it is no crime." Then he noted the expressionon her face, and paused.

  She stepped back, scandalized.

  "Can it be, Bles Alwyn," she said, "that you don't know the sort of girlshe is?"

  He raised his hands and warded off her words, dumbly, as she turned togo, almost frightened at the havoc she saw. The heavens flamed scarletin his eyes and he screamed.

  "It's a lie! It's a damned lie!" He wheeled about and tore into theswamp.

  "It's a damned lie!" he shouted to the trees. "Is it?--is it?" chirpedthe birds. "It's a cruel falsehood!" he moaned. "Is it?--is it?"whispered the devils within.

  It seemed to him as though suddenly the world was staggering andfaltering about him. The trees bent curiously and strange breathingswere upon the breezes. He unbuttoned his collar that he might get moreair. A thousand things he had forgotten surged suddenly to life. Slowerand slower he ran, more and more the thoughts crowded his head. Hethought of that first red night and the yelling and singing and wilddancing; he thought of Cresswell's bitter words; he thought of Zoratelling how she stayed out nights; he thought of the little bower thathe had built her in the cotton field. A wild fear struggled with hisanger, but he kept repeating, "No, no," and then, "At any rate, she willtell me the truth." She had never lied to him; she would not dare; heclenched his hands, murder in his heart.

  Slowly and more slowly he ran. He knew where she was--where she must be,waiting. And yet as he drew near huge hands held him back, and heavyweights clogged his feet. His heart said: "On! quick! She will tell thetruth, and all will be well." His mind said: "Slow, slow; this is theend." He hurled the thought aside, and crashed through the barrier.
/>
  She was standing still and listening, with a huge basket of the piledfroth of the field upon her head. One long brown arm, tender withcurvings, balanced the cotton; the other, poised, balanced the slimswaying body. Bending she listened, her eyes shining, her lips apart,her bosom fluttering at the well-known step.

  He burst into her view with the fury of a beast, rending the wood awayand trampling the underbrush, reeling and muttering until he saw her.She looked at him. Her hands dropped, she stood very still with drawnface, grayish-brown, both hands unconsciously out-stretched, and thecotton swaying, while deep down in her eyes, dimly, slowly, a horror litand grew. He paused a moment, then came slowly onward doggedly,drunkenly, with torn clothes, flying collar, and red eyes. Then hepaused again, still beyond arm's-length, looking at her with fear-struckeyes. The cotton on her head shivered and dropped in a pure mass ofwhite and silvery snow about her limbs. Her hands fell limply and thehorror flamed in her wet eyes. He struggled with his voice but it gratedand came hoarse and hard from his quivering throat.

  "Zora!"

  "Yes, Bles."

  "You--you told me--you were--pure."

  She was silent, but her body went all a-tremble. He stepped forwarduntil she could almost touch him; there standing straight and tall heglared down upon her.

  "Answer me," he whispered in a voice hard with its tight held sobs. Amisery darkened her face and the light died from her eyes, yet shelooked at him bravely and her voice came low and full as from afar.

  "I asked you what it meant to be pure, Bles, and--and you told--and Itold you the truth."

  "What it meant!--what it meant!" he repeated in the low, tense anguish.

  "But--but, Bles--" She faltered; there came an awful pleading in hereyes; her hand groped toward him; but he stepped slowly back--"But,Bles--you said--willingly--you said--if--if she knew--"

  He thundered back in livid anger:

  "Knew! All women know! You should have _died_!"

  Sobs were rising and shaking her from head to foot, but she drove themback and gripped her breasts with her hands.

  "No, Bles--no--all girls do not know. I was a child. Not since I knewyou, Bles--never, never since I saw you."

  "Since--since," he groaned--"Christ! But before?"

  "Yes, before."

  "My God!"

  She knew the end had come. Yet she babbled on tremblingly:

  "He was our master, and all the other girls that gathered there did hiswill; I--I--" she choked and faltered, and he drew farther away--"Ibegan running away, and they hunted me through the swamps. Andthen--then I reckon I'd have gone back and been--as they all are--butyou came, Bles--you came, and you--you were a new great thing in mylife, and--and--yet, I was afraid I was not worthy until you--you saidthe words. I thought you knew, and I thought that--that purity was justwanting to be pure."

  He ground his teeth in fury. Oh, he was an innocent--a blind baby--thejoke and laughing-stock of the country around, with yokels grinning athim and pale-faced devils laughing aloud. The teachers knew; the girlsknew; God knew; everybody but he knew--poor blind, deaf mole, stupidjackass that he was. He must run--run away from this world, and far offin some free land beat back this pain.

  Then in sheer weariness the anger died within his soul, leaving butashes and despair. Slowly he turned away, but with a quick motion shestood in his path.

  "Bles," she cried, "how can I grow pure?"

  He looked at her listlessly.

  "Never--never again," he slowly answered her.

  Dark fear swept her drawn face.

  "Never?" she gasped.

  Pity surged and fought in his breast; but one thought held and burnedhim. He bent to her fiercely:

  "Who?" he demanded.

  She pointed toward the Cresswell Oaks, and he turned away. She did notattempt to stop him again, but dropped her hands and stared drearily upinto the clear sky with its shining worlds.

  "Good-bye, Bles," she said slowly. "I thank God he gave you to me--justa little time." She hesitated and waited. There came no word as the manmoved slowly away. She stood motionless. Then slowly he turned and cameback. He laid his hand a moment, lightly, upon her head.

  "Good-bye--Zora," he sobbed, and was gone.

  She did not look up, but knelt there silent, dry-eyed, till the lastrustle of his going died in the night. And then, like a waiting storm,the torrent of her grief swept down upon her; she stretched herself uponthe black and fleece-strewn earth, and writhed.